What We Do

The graduate working group of Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering: Graduate (ILead:Grad) is a branch of the program-directed arm of the Institute for Leadership Education in Engineering (ILead). Unique among the ILead working groups, ILead:Grad is a cross-department, student-run organization focused on skill and social development.

“To empower individuals as leaders in order to improve the graduate student community and beyond.”

Our Vision

We strive to realize our vision by building on three fundamental pillars:Empowering Individuals • Cultivating a Positive Environment • Making an Impact

A person can lead others only as far as they have traveled.

Leadership today comes not from taking authority, but from having sufficient experience and skill to be given that authority by others. We can quantify our skill level in order to grow into better leaders by learning to identify our personal strengths, which gives us the power to shape our environment and to succeed as individuals. With the confidence gained from such an understanding, we become more willing to take on new challenges as leaders, to appreciate the real meaning of our leadership roles, and to grow towards our full potential.

The learning process is not a straight line; even when clearly seen, the path is complicated and riddled with potholes, detours, and pits.

Making mistakes, getting distracted, and failing outright are often the most difficult parts of learning, but they can be as necessary as they are arduous. In order to overcome these basic challenges, we must actively create an environment that is trusting, engaging, and open-minded. Such an environment motivates us to move beyond past mistakes, to stay involved, and to offer helping hands to other group members. With this foundation, we create a strong sense of reliability and camaraderie which enables us to support each individual’s leadership development and goals.

Knowledge that is never used might as well have never been known.

We choose to learn about leadership not simply out of interest, but from a desire to take ownership of the outcomes of our actions – be they big or small. Through this learning, we gain the confidence to put that knowledge into practice every day and in every interaction. We aim to teach each other to apply our collective leadership knowledge, intently and constructively, in order to create a meaningful impact on our friends, families, careers, and communities that will inspire the leaders of tomorrow.